This breathtaking natural light show illuminating waters off the British coast looks like something out of hit film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Photographer Adrian Campfield was out having dinner at a restaurant at Beachy Head, East Sussex, when the rays suddenly appeared. The 59-year-old and his wife Louise rushed outside onto the 535ft high cliffs to watch the spectacle. Mr Campfield, a former graphic designer, from Bexley, Kent, said the light was “changing all the time” for more than 15 minutes. (Photo by Adrian Campfield/Solent/Visual Press Agency)

March 28, 1967. Egg Roll; A large bunny attracted the attention of children and their parents during the annual Easter egg roll Monday on the south lawn of the White House. The bunny was made by Fred Johansen, Silver Spring, Md. Nearly 17,000 youngsters and adults took part in the egg rolling. The President and Mrs. John-son were not at the festivities because they were in Camp David, Md. The tradition of egg rolling was begun in 1878 during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes. (Photo by Minneapolis Star Tribune)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

Swan Uppers try to capture a swan and it's Cygnets on the River Thames near Windsor, England, during Swan Upping, with Windsor Castle in background, Tuesday July 20, 2021. The ancient tradition of Swan Upping is the annual census to gauge the numbers and health of the swan population on the River Thames. (Photo by Steve Parsons/PA Wire via AP Photo)

Commuters, some of them wearing masks as a precaution against the coronavirus ride an auto-rickshaw in Noida, outskirts of New Delhi, India, Thursday, July 16, 2020. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

A doctor performs surgery on an injured man with a part of an aluminium alloy fence through his chest after a car accident in Zhumadian, Henan province, China, September 15, 2014. The doctor managed to surgically remove the piece. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A damaged wooden garden house is seen amid a field of wheat following floods caused by heavy rainfalls, in Bad Bodendorf, Germany, July 18, 2021. (Photo by Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)